Tag: Things that totally suck

I was Going To Write This Article

Bad News, Marxists

…but Beege at Hot Air beat me to it.

The elections in England and France over the past week have been stellar examples of that, with surging populist parties echoing the concerns and voices of a good portion of the citizenry prior to the ballot box. But when vote push came to election shove, and parliamentary election rules being what they are in foreign countries, the feared and despised “right-wing” did make serious gains. But their hopes of election day triumphs were vanquished in both countries by simple math in one – England – and completely legal electioneering machinations by the Left in another – France.

Alas. The right has more seats at the table in both countries, but they do not control the head chair, and this leaves both countries under the sway of pretty liberal Leftist governments, with France being the vastly more radical of the two.

Read the rest for the gory — and I mean gory — details.

By the way:  I’m still feeling sick;  better than last week, but sick nevertheless.

Bad Additives

Health

…and I’m not talking about adding Diet Pepsi to Scotch, or a mistress into one’s marriage.  But some things, seemingly-innocuous things, when added to other things, are likely to be just as explosive.

Having grown up in South Africa which, despite all its faults, produces citrus fruits which make California/Florida oranges taste like dish soap, I have always loved me my citrus fruits:  oranges, lemons, limes and grapefruit, eaten either by themselves (orange, grapefruit) or as additives to stuff like gin and vodka (lime, lemon).

Eating grapefruit with one’s daily statin, however, is Nazzo Guido, as explained in this article:

For instance, citrus fruits, particularly grapefruit, is known to disrupt the absorption of at least 85 different medicines, from statins to antidepressants.

Wait, what?  I take atorvastatin.

The problem with citrus fruits is that they contain compounds, called furanocoumarins, that can interfere with an enzyme in our body that breaks down these drugs, potentially leading to dangerously high levels in our bloodstream.

So much for that daily glass of vitamin C-rich grapefruit juice with my breakfast then, FFS.

Under normal conditions, this enzyme reduces the amount of the drug that enters your blood — and the quantities you are prescribed take this process into account, according to Simon Maxwell, a professor of student learning (clinical pharmacology and prescribing) at Edinburgh University.

‘This interaction partly occurs in the gut, enabling increased absorption, but also — significantly — in the liver, preventing it from progressively removing the drug in the hours after absorption. Together, this means that overall exposure to the drug can be significantly increased, resulting in toxic effects.’

‘Citrus fruits’ furanocoumarins stop CYP3A4 from doing its job — and they’re more concentrated in juice than the fruit [because a glass of juice contains more of the fruit].’

As a result, more of the drug is absorbed, making it more powerful than intended.

‘For example, a 240ml glass of grapefruit juice can increase blood levels [of the drug] by as much as 200 per cent, taking it from the therapeutic range to the potentially toxic range.

‘This can lead to side-effects such as extreme muscle damage for statins; priapism (excessively long-lasting erections) for sildenafil*; headaches, dizziness, fatigue and impaired sleep with sertraline; excessive sedation for midazolam; and excessive reduction in blood pressure, raised heart rate, dizziness, fatigue and blurred vision for those taking calcium channel blockers.’

And that’s just citrus.  Wait till you see what vitamin K-rich bananas can do to you.

Read the whole thing.

*It’s not all shitty news, by the way:  if you’re heading to an orgy, or want to make a decent first-time impression on your willing date, chug some grapefruit juice with your Viagra, preferably in a vodka cocktail [sic].

(Standard disclosure applies.)

Of course, you may end up with a 24-hour woody which may damage your member, but on the other hand, Madame will almost certainly be well satisfied, even if she requires the services of the paramedics as much as you do.  And if the fuzz have to be called to remove you from the orgy… well, there are always going to be spoilsports, aren’t there?

So take all the above with a grain of salt — just not that salt substitute crap, which is even worse for you than grapefruit juice, according to the article.

Be careful out there.

One Out Of Three Ain’t Bad

Grooming

Consider this pic of one couple’s happy day, and spot what causes my nuts to ache:

No, it’s not the bride’s tattoo — I’ve pretty much given up on that irk — and in fact she’s the only pretty thing at this little ceremony.  Nor is it the female minister / ministress, who looks like she was just pulled out of a company meeting, complete with name tag.  (FFS, if we’re going to have female priests, can they at least wear the fucking uniform?)

Anyway, none of those get up my nose as much as the groom’s medieval haircut.

This seems to be all the fashion nowadays, and I think it’s uglier than Hillary Clinton’s fat naked buttocks.

The only consolation I’m going to take out of this is that when his grandchildren look at Pawpaw’s wedding-day pics, they’ll laugh their asses off.

I’m assuming, of course, that he’s capable of actually fathering any children, because that’s not clear (unless the bride is already pregnant hum hum).  Even then, her rather alarming stomach protuberance isn’t evidence of any prowess on his part, because that might be / probably is Homeboy Jamaal’s chocolate babycake cooking in her little oven, and this Ginger Childe Harold is just the substitute father.

And by the way:  brown shoes at a wedding?  Oh well, it least it wasn’t Adidas sneakers or flip-flops…

The Glass Tube As Architecture

Architecture, Modernism

Here’s one from London that gets me chuckling:

Mansour Namaki wants to link his Grade I-listed Regency villa – which was designed by James Burton in 1828 – to the mews house that also sits on the land.

Fair enough.  He owns both properties and the land between them, and it makes good sense to link them rather than have to walk through the garden (in British Weather) just to get from one to the other.  But then it all went pear-shaped:

He has hired Gherkin tower designer Ken Shuttleworth to design a ‘striking’ glass walkway that will join the two properties in the Regent’s Park Conservation Area.

Ah yes… the Gherkin:

…a.k.a. the Glass Suppository, which all by itself made London look… uglier.

What did he expect would happen?

Well, this is what would happen:

…so needless to say, the Usual Suspects and Busybodies got involved:

According to the council, the walkway’s ‘sculptural form would be a deliberately striking intervention which would over-compete with the architectural forms of the historic building and would demand attention.’

Richard Simpson, chair of Regent’s Park Conservation Area Advisory Committee said: ‘We asked the council to reject it and they did. Now we are waiting for the appeal decision.

‘It’s a very interesting house historically. 

‘This walkway would be a completely inappropriate addition both in terms of its scale, as it is two storeys, and its design. Its exotic curvy glazing which is really quite inappropriate.

‘It’s possible that an application for a walkway could be accepted. We are not saying he can’t as several others have but they should be much more modest. The buildings need to be respected.’

And another:

‘The rules are there for a reason. These houses are Listed and the rest of us have to abide by the restrictions. If Historic England has refused to approve it then they will have valid reasons for doing so.

‘The plans aren’t in keeping with the architecture. If he wants to build something modern he shouldn’t have bought a Listed home – they are very strict in the conservation area about what can and can’t be changed.’

And I agree. This bullshit is all about “Well I bought something so I can do anything I want with it” is typical rich-man’s solipsim and arrogance.

Anyway, that glass tunnel looks like something a pervert would use to insert a rat up someone’s anus.

The only good thing I can say about this silly man is that his wife would look really good in a Regency-era ballgown.

No permit needed for those.

Ripoff?

Business, Economics, Retailing

Let’s say you went into a little seaside diner feeling peckish, and saw that they had a menu item that read:  “2 slices of buttered toast”.

Sounds okay, yes?  (I’m going with “normal-person peckish” and not “American peckish” which would apparently require the entire loaf to satisfy that hunger pang.)

Then you see the price:  $5.00 for the two slices of buttered toast.

Ripoff?  Let’s analyze the thing.

I’m going to give the diner the benefit of the doubt here, and allow their claim that this isn’t Wonderbread and store-label butter, but a “premium” offering.  I’m also, for the purpose of the analysis, going to allow that they purchased the ingredients thereof at retail prices (they didn’t).

Our diner, by the way, would be located in the equivalent of coastal Florida, up in the Redneck Riviera.

So using my local gourmet store (Central Market) as a price guide, let’s look at the thing:

Let’s see what the unit cost is.  Assuming you’re doing thick-ish (e.g. “not-quite-Texan”) slice size, you’re going to get about 16 slices out of that loaf, assuming that we discard the ends, of course.  So: $5 / 16 = 31.25 cents ($0.3125) per slice; or 62.5 cents in total for the two.

Now the butter:  even assuming you slather the butter on like I typically do, you’re still going to use about 1/32oz per slice, ergo ending up with (8x 32 = 256;  398 / 256 = about 1.5 cents per slice or 3 cents for the menu item.

Total “cost”:  (31.25 + 1.5) x 2 = 65.5 cents ($0.655) for the two slices of buttered toast.

Now for the tricky bit.

Restaurants, from back when I still managed one, typically have had to mark up “cost” by 600% just to break even.  (Don’t even get me started on whether that’s the case in NYfC or Califuckingfornia:  it isn’t.)  This takes into account fixed overhead like salaries, supplies & equipment, utilities, real estate and so on (i.e. what it costs your diner each day before you get a single customer in the door).

So the extended cost of that 2-slice item works out to (errr carry the six) $3.93, before adding a single penny for gross profit. (And just so we’re clear:  $5 from $3.93 represents about 27% gross profit — I know, don’t make me laugh.)

Is $5, therefore, a total ripoff?

Not from where I stand, and this kind of analysis explains why you have to take your bank manager along to 5 Guys every time you visit them to get you and your wife a burger.

Here’s the article that prompted this post.

And Fuck Joe Biden, because about three years ago that $5 loaf of bread at Central Market used to cost $2.85, and the $4 butter about $2.75 (because I keep track of this kind of thing, even though the Gummint would prefer that I forget that the chocolate ration used to be 5 grams and not three).

[/Orwell]

About That California Thing

Anti-Gun Nannies, Legal Stuff, The Gun Thing

…you know, that 10-day waiting period before you can take possession of that gun you just purchased.

Let’s just hope you don’t need that shootin’ iron before then, is all.

Or if you are being robbed and you’re still stuck in that waiting period without a gun, I’m sure that if you explain the situation and ask the burglars / robbers nicely, they’ll go away and leave you alone till the end thereof.

That’s what the CalGov means by “tough shit”, I guess.

(My CA Readers — and why are they still there? — are probably not in that same boat, as I’m pretty sure they’re all, shall we say, adequately armed.)